Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

And just coming back to Mr. Cardiff's initial statement, where he commented upon Mr. Trichet's letter of 19 November 2010 to the late Minister for Finance. He said, "In many ways [the] letter was entirely superfluous, since it was already clear by the time of the letter that the Government was going to opt into a programme." Now, that would imply, in the same way that somebody would apply for a mortgage, you might be many months negotiating with the bank and then you sign off on the mortgage eventually. But speaking on the same related matter, Jean-Claude Trichet, when he appeared at the IEA-hosted event in Kilmainham on 30 April 2015, speaking in around the same issue, said as "you know, we could also have continued on our side after having gone up to 100% of ... GDP ... to 200% of ... GDP, and why not 300% of ... GDP?". This relates to the ELA exposure, and we'll have the ... more exact sum hopefully later this afternoon. He then went on to say, "Then what would the [commission of inquiry been] asking for", referring to this inquiry, as to what our terms of reference would be. He goes on to say, "You would say, 'were you totally crazy at the ECB to continue, when we were going into the wall at 100 mph, to continue to provide liquidity and liquidity, and liquidity?'." So, Governor Honohan, can I ask you, was Mr. Trichet right in this regard if this action hadn't happened and the entry into the programme had been delayed, would the cost of the bailout have even been bigger for Ireland?